Omaha Poker Hand Strength

Starting hands in Pot-Limit Omaha are grouped by structure. With so many possible 4-card combinations it is actually the suits, closeness of the cards and pairs as well as the high card strength that makes the difference between a strong starting hand and a weak one. Add to this the fact that seemingly insignificant differences – for example a gap at the top end of your connected middle cards compared to a gap at the bottom end – make a huge difference and it is difficult to come up with some simple ‘cut off point’ between good and poor hands in the same way we do in Holdem.

Every beginning player, therefore, needs to understand the poker hand rankings to determine the strength of each player’s hand and, subsequently, the winner. In this guide, we present the Texas Hold’em hands order of value, from bottom to the highest hand in poker (the rankings apply to Omaha too). Relative Hand Strength in PL Omaha Omaha is a game that is very different from other forms of poker in that relative hand strength is one of the most important variables in play at all times. Where bet sizing or other dynamics play a major role in a game like NLHE, your relative hand strength is.

Of course, many players new to Omaha look for a PLO starting hand chart first – these are common in Holdem, so why not for Omaha!
I am happy to be publishing a contribution from a reader today, the following Omaha starting hands chart was put together by Anthony, from Ashburn VA – an Omaha fan with a genuine will to help people new to the game.

This chart is based on Jeff Hwang’s playing guidelines, the position and raise / fold percentages are based on deep-stacked play and full-ring tables. Adapting this for 6-max games should be straight forward enough for motivated readers, you are starting in Mid-Position compared to a full table and should be raising a lot from the cut-off and button positions.

Click the graphic below to see the full chart. Your feedback is welcomed, particularly on how this could be adapted for different situations and stack sizes, mail us at [email protected] anytime.

Suggested Starting Hand Structures – based on deepstack FR games, should be adjusted for 6max

Just like to close with my thanks to Anthony for these charts – you can contact him at the following address ashburnpokerclub (at sign) gmail.comands are playable while others are not check out the following guides:

Effective Hand Strength (EHS) is a poker algorithm conceived by computer scientistsDarse Billings, Denis Papp, Jonathan Schaeffer and Duane Szafron that has been published for the first time in a research paper (1998). 'Opponent Modeling in Poker'(PDF). AAAI-98 Proceedings.

It has since then been considered as a reference in the realm of poker artificial intelligence and has been the basis of further research such as:

• 'Computer poker: a review'(PDF). Artificial Intelligence, Department of Computer Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand: 962–963. 2010.
• 'Application of AI in poker'(PDF). VU University Amsterdam Faculty of Sciences: 12–13. 2011.
• 'Advances in artificial intelligence – SBIA 2008 : 19th Brazilian Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Salvador, Brazil, October 26–30, 2008 ; proceedings'. 2008: 85–86.Cite journal requires journal= (help)

Algorithm[edit]

The algorithm is a numerical approach to quantify the strength of a poker hand where its result expresses the strength of a particular hand in percentile (i.e. ranging from 0 to 1), compared to all other possible hands.The underlying assumption is that an Effective Hand Strength (EHS) is composed of the current Hand Strength (HS) and its potential to improve or deteriorate (PPOT and NPOT):

${\displaystyle EHS=HS\times (1-NPOT)+(1-HS)\times PPOT}$

Winning Hands In Omaha Poker

where:

• ${\displaystyle EHS}$ is the Effective Hand Strength
• ${\displaystyle HS}$ is the current Hand Strength (i.e. not taking into account potential to improve or deteriorate, depending on upcoming table cards
• ${\displaystyle NPOT}$ is the Negative POTential (i.e. the probability that our current hand, if the strongest, deteriorates and becomes a losing hand)
• ${\displaystyle PPOT}$ is the Positive POTential (i.e. the probability that our current hand, if losing, improves and becomes the winning hand)

Pseudocode[edit]

Omaha Poker Starting Hands

Hand Strength (HS) will enumerate all possible opponent hand cards and count the occurrences where our hand is strongest (+50% of the cases where we are tied):

In addition, EHS will consider the hand potential (i.e. its probabilities to improve or deteriorate):

Applicability[edit]

EHS is applicable to a wide variety of poker games such as Texas hold 'em poker, Omaha hold 'em poker, ...

Omaha Poker Hand Strength Drills

Given the complexity of the algorithm, it can not be computed manually and has to be used in an Artificial Intelligence context.